Author wraps up Big Read finale with civil liberties talk

Thursday

May 28, 2009 at 12:01 AM

Ken Ackerman is the first to say he's no Ray Bradbury.

Lori Gilbert

Ken Ackerman is the first to say he's no Ray Bradbury.

The Washington, D.C.-based attorney and author shares the novelist's concern for Americans' civil liberties, though, and will address them when he visits Stockton on Friday to wrap up the city's Big Read.

The community was invited to read Bradbury's 1951 classic "Fahrenheit 451" over the past month, and Ackerman ends the library's activities with a talk and pictorial presentation on civil liberties.

Ackerman will draw in part from his latest book, "Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties."

Although he'd never compared his book to the classic novel, Ackerman said it's not a huge stretch.

Even if one's a novel and one's a history, and one looks forward while the other looks back, "they're both trying to use storytelling to make a point," Ackerman said.

"I'm not being falsely modest. Ray Bradbury is a much better writer. His premise, of firemen who go out and start fires, is such an eye-catching premise, it draws you in."

Bradbury's futuristic protagonist, Guy Montag, lives in a time when firemen burn books - they've been banned because they offended special interest groups - citizens don't read. They watch excessive amounts of television on wall-sized screens and listen to the radio through gadgets attached to their ears.

Montag eventually rebels against society and as he attempts to flee from officials, his movements are monitored by mounted cameras on the streets and he's pursued by a mechanical dog.

"Bradbury was a very prescient person," Ackerman said. "What he wrote decades ago we're seeing today. Beyond pure science fiction, he was seeing into the future. He touched on the eternals in this country, freedom of speech, freedom of expression. Freedom to write is one of the most fragile things."

Those freedoms came under assault when Hoover, in his first job for the FBI, rounded up suspected communists after World War. They've been threatened at different times since, most notably during the Red Scare of the 1950s and after the attacks of 9/11.

"In the moment of panic, there's a belief that the end justifies the means," Ackerman said. "We face a crisis, so normal rules have to be short circuited. Therefore, because there's a crisis, we have to do anything to prevent another attack. When that happens, the government gets sloppy."

The similarities of the times in which we live and "Fahrenheit 451" have McGeorge Law School professor John Sims ready to re-read the classic.

The man who teaches constitutional law and international protection of human rights asked students studying national security law to address civil liberties in the wake of 9/11 by starting with Charles' Dickens' line, "It was the best of times. It was the worst times," from "A Tale of Two Cities."

"The worst of times are obvious," Sims said. "Lawyers gave corrupt, inaccurate corrosive advice that was convenient for providing a veneer (of) respectability to illegal policy. There was a disregard of law by the president, vice president, chief of staff and secretary of defense. They did whatever they wanted, and up to a point, got away with it."

On the other hand, Sims notes the courts stood firm on protecting rights of detainees, and after hastily passing the Patriot Act after Sept. 11, 2001, Congress renewed it in 2005 "with procedural protections it never considered before," Sims said.

The full scale of what was done in the wake of 9/11- eavesdropping, torture, overseas prisons and loss of liberties - is not yet known, but Ackerman notes that America's overreaction to events has changed over time.

Hoover rounded up 10,000 suspected communists during a three-month period in the early 1920s, Japanese Americans were thrown into detention centers during World War II and even the slightest affiliation with communism destroyed lives in the 1950s.

"I don't think what was done was as crude and outright brutal as was done in the 1950s and 1920s," Ackerman said. "Today, there are more controls in place. There are more watchdog groups."

In an inspired, almost full-circle moment of tying "Fahrenheit 451" with his contemporary view on civil liberties, Ackerman noted, "The first pushback on the Patriot Act was mounted by librarians. They wouldn't allow the FBI to have lists of books checked out."

The same people who have fought to stop book burnings in the past stepped forward in 2001 to defend the rights of people who wanted to read whatever they wanted, including one about a guy who thought a government shouldn't be allowed to tell him he could not read what he wanted.